Alexis Tsipras: Europe is sleepwalking towards a cliff

Europe’s economic woes, along with terrorism and the refugee crisis, could be fatal to its cohesion, the Greek prime minister said in an interview that was published on Thursday in Le Monde.

“Europe is going through a deep crisis, it is like a sleepwalker heading towards a cliff,” Tsipras told the paper.

Tsipras is expected to meet with French President François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Athens on Friday, before the informal meeting of 27 EU leaders – minus Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May – in Bratislava on September 16.

The left-wing politician called for less austerity to foster growth and jobs, Le Monde reported.

“If we do not make employment a priority, Europe could disintegrate,” he said, warning that following the Brexit vote, there could be “other referendums rejecting the European Union.”

“Today, we have a North that accumulates surpluses and a South that suffers under severe deficit,” he said. “There is no European convergence when such disparities exist.”

Tsispras called on other EU leaders to reduce the Greek debt. “If they don’t want to make progress on this, then it will be difficult for my country to start growing again,” he said.

He criticized the lack of response by European countries on the issues of refugees, many of whom are still stranded on Greek islands. “It is unacceptable to see that, out of the resettlement of 33,000 refugees that was foreseen in 2016, only 3,000 have actually taken place.”

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Ludovica

Tsipras is totally right. He usually is.

Posted on 9/8/16 | 1:12 PM CET

Roland

The re-settlement program is a farce because Greece already re-settled over a million migrants to other EU states. Far exceeding the quotas agreed. The EU is not a transfer union the Euro requires states to follow the properly named Stability and Growth pact which mandates that member states have a max yearly deficit of 3% of GDP and a max of 60% debt to GDP overall. We also have freedom of movement of labor in Europe so when Tsipras talks jobs those jobs exist just not in Greece. Greeks should learn German or Chinese. Printing funny money is no substitute for reforms and making your workers more productive. But if Tsioras wants to follow this path than he has to leave tbe Euro and re-introduce the drachma then he can print all the funny money he wants and Greeks can start building bridges to nowhere.

Posted on 9/8/16 | 2:28 PM CET

Roland

By the way the stability and growth pact rules were and are intended to create the conditions which would allow for a deeper fiscal convergence of member states. But it is not acceptable to run up debts and make the Germans and others pay for it.

Posted on 9/8/16 | 3:01 PM CET

Filippo

@roland
I suspect all that migrants are not heading to greece as their final destination and they were not so many until someone said ‘we can do it’, and it was not Tsipras. How nice showing solidarity with someone else’s border, isn’t it?
Should greece exit the euro? How? There is no rule about it. Greece should, as it’s doing, work at building a coalition to change the rules that you like so much, and that drove europe into the present dead end. In the meantime they can always ignore them, as france and spain, unfortunately not italy, do since many years. Or as another country, that starts with a G but it’s not greece, does with the foreign trade surplus rule since eight years straight. I wish you will be so harsh to it as well for breaking your holy rules…or there are some pigs that are more equal than the others?

Posted on 9/8/16 | 3:18 PM CET

Filippo

@roland
By the way germans are not paying a damned € for greece. They are borrowing money at negative rate on the financial market and lending at a low positive rate. This means that they, as the Ecb as well, are earning money. Italy instead is borrowing at an higher positive rate and lending to greece at a lower one. And, though the banks to be rescued in greece were not italian but german and french, we are not whining and complaining any thirty minutes being forced to pay for someone else’s faults

Posted on 9/8/16 | 3:25 PM CET

Roland

@Fillipo Could it be that your print,borrow and spend your way to prosperity model is flawed and that you actually have to stimulate people to build capital and to go out and find productive jobs that reward their labor ? All you Keynesians are being proved wrong every single day you create disasters just like Marxists. You spent today so you are poorer tomorrow. When 2008 happened you fell flat on your face the day of reconing had arrived and there is no longer a way to escape from the consequences. Reality is knocking at your door. The party is over. Do I need to explain the Dublin regulations ? Greece should protect its borders and process all asylum claims. You are right Merkel stimulated the migrant disaster by opening the border but it started with you allowing migrants to pass through.

Posted on 9/8/16 | 6:24 PM CET

Filippo

@Roland
I ignore what print and spend model you are talking about. In italy financing public debt by printing money is forbidden since 1981, unlike germany where the bundesbank is still buying ‘temporarily’ the unsell bund at the auctions, despite any agreed rule and despite what its president daily preaches to the whole world but himself.
Curiously the public debt started growing after 1981 and restarted after 2011, not 2008. In the three years in between italy scored the best public debt performance in europe, even because, unlike germany, we hadn’t rotten public banks full of derivatives to rescue. But I understand that, as any religion, yours is harder than any possible fact.
By the way, in the Uk they have the Thatcher’s party at the government and they print money. Do you want to teach how not to be keynesian to the Thatcherists?

Posted on 9/8/16 | 7:14 PM CET

Filippo

@Roland
First cut by nearly 100 bn € your illegal foreign trade surplus to comply with the rules, then let’s talk about Dublin

Posted on 9/8/16 | 7:25 PM CET

Filippo

Finally, no, it didn’t start with us. Until we could do ourselves we had a deal with gheddafi, that unlike Merkel’s with Erdogan we paid ourselves, that worked pretty well

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